Agriculture is that which is so universally understood among them that no person,
either man or woman, is ignorant of it; they are instructed in it from their childhood,
partly by what they learn at school, and partly by practice, they being led out often into
the fields about the town, where they not only see others at work but are likewise
exercised in it themselves. Besides agriculture, which is so common to them all, every man
has some peculiar trade to which he applies himself; such as the manufacture of wool or
flax, masonry, smith's work, or carpenter's work; for there is no sort of trade that is in
great esteem among them. Throughout the island they wear the same sort of clothes, without
any other distinction except what is necessary to distinguish the two sexes and the
married and unmarried. The fashion never alters, and as it is neither disagreeable nor
uneasy, so it is suited to the climate, and calculated both for their summers and winters.
Every family makes their own clothes; but all among them, women as well as men, learn one
or other of the trades formerly mentioned. Women, for the most part, deal in wool and
flax, which suit best with their weakness, leaving the ruder trades to the men. The same
trade generally passes down from father to son, inclinations often following descent: but
if any man's genius lies another way he is, by adoption, translated into a family that
deals in the trade to which he is inclined; and when that is to be done, care is taken,
not only by his father, but by the magistrate, that he may be put to a discreet and good
man: and if, after a person has learned one trade, he desires to acquire another, that is
also allowed, and is managed in the same manner as the former. When he has learned both,
he follows that which he likes best, unless the public has more occasion for the other.

The chief, and almost the only, business of the Syphogrants is to take care that no man
may live idle, but that every one may follow his trade diligently; yet they do not wear
themselves out with perpetual toil from morning to night, as if they were beasts of
burden, which as it is indeed a heavy slavery, so it is everywhere the common course of
life amongst all mechanics except the Utopians: but they, dividing the day and night into
twenty-four hours, appoint six of these for work, three of which are before dinner and
three after; they then sup, and at eight o'clock, counting from noon, go to bed and sleep
eight hours: the rest of their time, besides that taken up in work, eating, and sleeping,
is left to every man's discretion; yet they are not to abuse that interval to luxury and
idleness, but must employ it in some proper exercise, according to their various
inclinations, which is, for the most part, reading. It is ordinary to have public lectures
every morning before daybreak, at which none are obliged to appear but those who are
marked out for literature; yet a great many, both men and women, of all ranks, go to hear
lectures of one sort or other, according to their inclinations: but if others that are not
made for contemplation, choose rather to employ themselves at that time in their trades,
as many of them do, they are not hindered, but are rather commended, as men that take care
to serve their country. After supper they spend an hour in some diversion, in summer in
their gardens, and in winter in the halls where they eat, where they entertain each other
either with music or discourse. They do not so much as know dice, or any such foolish and
mischievous games. They have, however, two sorts of games not unlike our chess; the one is
between several numbers, in which one number, as it were, consumes another; the other
resembles a battle between the virtues and the vices, in which the enmity in the vices
among themselves, and their agreement against virtue, is not unpleasantly represented;
together with the special opposition between the particular virtues and vices; as also the
methods by which vice either openly assaults or secretly undermines virtue; and virtue, on
the other hand, resists it. But the time appointed for labour is to be narrowly examined,
otherwise you may imagine that since there are only six hours appointed for work, they may
fall under a scarcity of necessary provisions: but it is so far from being true that this
time is not sufficient for supplying them with plenty of all things, either necessary or
convenient, that it is rather too much; and this you will easily apprehend if you consider
how great a part of all other nations is quite idle. First, women generally do little, who
are the half of mankind; and if some few women are diligent, their husbands are idle: then
consider the great company of idle priests, and of those that are called religious men;
add to these all rich men, chiefly those that have estates in land, who are called
noblemen and gentlemen, together with their families, made up of idle persons, that are
kept more for show than use; add to these all those strong and lusty beggars that go about
pretending some disease in excuse for their begging; and upon the whole account you will
find that the number of those by whose labours mankind is supplied is much less than you
perhaps imagined: then consider how few of those that work are employed in labours that
are of real service, for we, who measure all things by money, give rise to many trades
that are both vain and superfluous, and serve only to support riot and luxury: for if
those who work were employed only in such things as the conveniences of life require,
there would be such an abundance of them that the prices of them would so sink that
tradesmen could not be maintained by their gains; if all those who labour about useless
things were set to more profitable employments, and if all they that languish out their
lives in sloth and idleness (every one of whom consumes as much as any two of the men that
are at work) were forced to labour, you may easily imagine that a small proportion of time
would serve for doing all that is either necessary, profitable, or pleasant to mankind,
especially while pleasure is kept within its due bounds: this appears very plainly in
Utopia; for there, in a great city, and in all the territory that lies round it, you can
scarce find five hundred, either men or women, by their age and strength capable of
labour, that are not engaged in it. Even the Syphogrants, though excused by the law, yet
do not excuse themselves, but work, that by their examples they may excite the industry of
the rest of the people; the like exemption is allowed to those who, being recommended to
the people by the priests, are, by the secret suffrages of the Syphogrants, privileged
from labour, that they may apply themselves wholly to study; and if any of these fall
short of those hopes that they seemed at first to give, they are obliged to return to
work; and sometimes a mechanic that so employs his leisure hours as to make a considerable
advancement in learning is eased from being a tradesman and ranked among their learned
men. Out of these they choose their ambassadors, their priests, their Tranibors, and the
Prince himself, anciently called their Barzenes, but is called of late their Ademus.

"And thus from the great numbers among them that are neither suffered to be idle
nor to be employed in any fruitless labour, you may easily make the estimate how much may
be done in those few hours in which they are obliged to labour. But, besides all that has
been already said, it is to be considered that the needful arts among them are managed
with less labour than anywhere else. The building or the repairing of houses among us
employ many hands, because often a thriftless heir suffers a house that his father built
to fall into decay, so that his successor must, at a great cost, repair that which he
might have kept up with a small charge; it frequently happens that the same house which
one person built at a vast expense is neglected by another, who thinks he has a more
delicate sense of the beauties of architecture, and he, suffering it to fall to ruin,
builds another at no less charge. But among the Utopians all things are so regulated that
men very seldom build upon a new piece of ground, and are not only very quick in repairing
their houses, but show their foresight in preventing their decay, so that their buildings
are preserved very long with but very little labour, and thus the builders, to whom that
care belongs, are often without employment, except the hewing of timber and the squaring
of stones, that the materials may be in readiness for raising a building very suddenly
when there is any occasion for it. As to their clothes, observe how little work is spent
in them; while they are at labour they are clothed with leather and skins, cut carelessly
about them, which will last seven years, and when they appear in public they put on an
upper garment which hides the other; and these are all of one colour, and that is the
natural colour of the wool. As they need less woollen cloth than is used anywhere else, so
that which they make use of is much less costly; they use linen cloth more, but that is
prepared with less labour, and they value cloth only by the whiteness of the linen or the
cleanness of the wool, without much regard to the fineness of the thread. While in other
places four or five upper garments of woollen cloth of different colours, and as many
vests of silk, will scarce serve one man, and while those that are nicer think ten too
few, every man there is content with one, which very often serves him two years; nor is
there anything that can tempt a man to desire more, for if he had them he would neither be
the, warmer nor would he make one jot the better appearance for it. And thus, since they
are all employed in some useful labour, and since they content themselves with fewer
things, it falls out that there is a great abundance of all things among them; so that it
frequently happens that, for want of other work, vast numbers are sent out to mend the
highways; but when no public undertaking is to be performed, the hours of working are
lessened. The magistrates never engage the people in unnecessary labour, since the chief
end of the constitution is to regulate labour by the necessities of the public, and to
allow the people as much time as is necessary for the improvement of their minds, in which
they think the happiness of life consists.